CMA DECLARES "NO CONTROVERSY" RE EL-ATTAR PEER REVIEW CASE!

In response to a query from The Alliance for Patient Safety posed by Gil Mileikowsky, MD, a question indicating that there was "confusion" about which side CMA was on in the case of the El-Attar versus Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center peer review case, the following response was provided by Astrid Meghrigian: "There is no controversy - the Court made a mistake and CMA is working to get it corrected."

Meghrigian attached the CMA brief in support of the physician (relax, just read it -- it's an important judicial statement and it's only 5 pages!). All physicians involved in peer review should read it. So should CMA staff and officers who worked on AB 655 (Hayashi).

John Young, MD, commented on Hayashi's peer review bill: "AB 655 serves no useful purpose and ... should be dumped."

Hayashi's bill spits in the face of the Appeals Court findings in El-Attar versus Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center because as it's currently written it enables sham peer review. By contrast, CMA says that "peer review, fairly conducted, is essential to preserving the highest standards of medical practice" and that "peer review that is not conducted fairly results in harm to both patients and healing arts practitioners by limiting access to care."

AB 655 (Hayashi) enables sham peer review. The surprise should be that, once this weakness in the bill was discovered, the author declined to make indicated amendments while the CMA continued to sponsor it.